Chapter 461 Falling Meteors, Destination: Sea of Stars
“Oh my, my dear brother! If you had come back any later, Commander Su Deben would have thrown my brains down to look for you.”
“Well, it’s also partially my fault. I didn’t think of asking you to bring more filter elements. How could this protective suit last more than two hours under those conditions!”
“Move quickly! I’ll get Yan Xiaqing to properly examine your body!” The rocket was flying at an altitude of ninety meters above ground when the rear entrance opened.
Before Su Mo could even shut the door behind him, Lu Kuan, who was controlling the robot, rushed forward with an anxious “look” on his face.
His trip down below, calculating from when he descended until he came back up, had lasted eight hours.
Of those eight hours, the protective suit would only function properly for the first two hours.
After the third hour, the protective suit would begin to lose effect.
For Lu Kuan, it was a period of anxious waiting
During this period, Su Deben, Ji Yang, Yan Xiaqing and the others all reprimanded him.
A reaction of such magnitude was truly warranted!
Oreo, who was lying not far from where Lu Kuan was standing, was much more calm. She just leisurely wagged her tail about and laughed.
“Don’t! There’s radiation all over the protective suit. Let me take off the suit first, then we can talk!”
“I’m not afraid! I’m made of metal!”
However, after he said those words, Lu Kuan’s eyes lit up like a light bulb.
The robot’s body had a number of basic scanning devices. While it was not as good as the larger, fixed versions of the devices, it could scan the protective suit and figure out that Su Mo’s physical state was unharmed.
Seeing Lu Kuan’s good intentions, Su Mo did not refuse.
It was just as expected, after the scanned data floated in front of his eyes, Lu Kuan was stunned senseless.
“Your protective suit can still properly function for another 18 minutes. That’s impossible! You’ve been down there for 7 hours and 42 minutes!”
“Did you take off the protective suit down there? My god, do you not want to live?”
“Relax, the radiation down there isn’t as bad as you’re imagining. Let me take off my clothes first. I’ll talk about everything in detail after that.”
With a heave, he pulled on the rear door and confirmed that it was completely closed.
He picked up the two collection instruments and gently took them out.
The containers from before only contained the radioactive soil and the blood-red ocean water.
However, when he was leaving, Su Mo dived down to the ocean floor. He did so to collect the blood-red soil that was emitting energy level fluctuations as a result of radioactive mutation within the ocean.
He also collected some of the liquids and impurities that were ejected from the bursting flames on the radioactive ground.
These specimens would naturally be worthless in the eyes of ordinary people; such people would be better off getting two big, white steamed buns instead.
However, for people like Lu Kuan who were research maniacs, these specimens exuded a fatal attraction.
As expected, Lu Kuan set his sights on the specimens and, after analyzing their basic data readings, his eyes became glued to them. “Su Mo, you really are a madman. A no-compromise adventurous maniac.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Under the helmet, he grinned as Lu Kuan reluctantly picked up the containers and retreated into the distance.
After throwing a relieved look toward Oreo, Su Mo marched himself to the isolation chamber so that he could take off the protective suit and take a shower.
The blood-red soil that fell off the protective suit was automatically collected into an isolation storage unit.
Any radioactive material hidden in the gaps was washed away by the high-pressure water
jet.
When it came to radiation, human bodies were as fragile as paper.
In the absence of medical technology and treatment on the wasteland, Su Mo treated things like this with extreme caution, even though he possessed psychic energy water and the system.
He waited until he could not see any impurities in the water flowing on the floor of the isolation chamber.
He turned off the water nozzle and discarded his previous set of clothes and put on a set of new clothes he took out from his storage space.
He then walked out with large strides.
At the doorway, Oreo was laying there waiting in her usual lazy state.
Thanks to her sixth sense, she could feel Su Mo’s strong lifeforce. As such, she was as calm as an old dog, which was very different from Lu Kuan’s restless anxiousness.
Su Mo brought Oreo inside, and then took out the prepared dinner meal and mixed in some psychic energy water.
Seeing Oreo feasting scrumptiously, Su Mo smiled and passed by her to head to the captain’s quarters. From setting sail to fighting the war, and then fighting against the godly incarnations of the Five Royal Clans; from the search for the Expeditionary Army’s base to finally flying far above the wasteland’s skies, whenever Su Mo sat back down onto his seat again, it symbolized that the end of this voyage was nearing and that there was just one last step to take.
It was all in a day’s work. Not only did he succeed in achieving everything he planned for before he set off, he even obtained some additional, unplanned, and shocking rewards as a result of his tireless effort.
With these rewards, when they arrived at the next New World, the entirety of the basin area would develop at a blinding speed. Humans’ hundreds to thousands of generations of effort would finally come to a head and fully blossom in Su Mo’s hands!
“After you left, I used the rocket’s detection module to analyze the energy responses from a few surrounding planets. The weird thing was that they all seemed to have experienced the explosions nuclear bombs and produced the same exact fluctuations in frequency.
“Right now, the rocket’s remaining energy is still at 64%. We only need to reserve 20% or so in order to make it back to the wasteland. Is there anywhere else you’d like to explore?” Lu Kuan scanned Su Mo’s body as he sat down and asked after verifying that there were no problems with Su Mo’s physical state.
Su Mo shook his head, “There’s no need. The planets nearby would be the same anyway. The planets we see on the outside are just a camouflage measure set up by the gods before they left or died. Even if we had the ability to break through this camouflage measure, there would be no difference between that place and the Land of Death. All we would find there are more radioactive substances and some interesting minor things!”
“Let’s go back! When we return to the wasteland and accumulate enough strength, there will come a day where everywhere as far as our eyes can see will become our domain!” “For now, just leave them be!” Su Mo blew mysteriously toward his fingers and let out a light grin.
The second Su Mo placed his hands on the thrust lever, a water-blue light emanated from his body and engulfed the entire rocket, which Lu Kuan could not see.
“Okay, I understand. What’s our destination?”
“The wasteland’s Sea of Stars!”
“Ahem, it was where we departed from!”
Whoosh!
After locking in the coordinates, both wings were expanded.
The psychic energy shuttle rocket that had been flying in circles started its ascent, slowly reaching a 90-degree elevation angle, and flew straight up. He felt the familiar pulling force and the breakthrough thereafter.
Su Mo then issued a second order as many colorful planets appeared in his field of vision.
“Get rid of all auxiliary parts and the wings of the rocket. Only the re-entry capsule and cabin area should remain.”
Lu Kuan was stunned, “Ha? Don’t we need all the instruments we brought along? Those things aren’t the only ones left on the wasteland, but duplicating them will not be easy and would require a lot of materials, or even some special methods to manufacture. If we just get rid of them, it will be a long time before we can make another one!” “Get rid of it!” Su Mo narrowed his eyes and slowly enunciated again. After the conversation with Jiang Chu, Su Mo gained a new understanding of some issues and details that he had not paid attention to before.
Although the game was a monster that was “bound” by many rules, it did not mean that it really did not have a mind of its own.
These instruments he had brought along with him from the base had been stained with the “scent” of the God’s authority he used last time.
Once the game started to pry into things again, he would need more survival points to keep these things hidden.
Not only that, he possessed the technical data of instruments, and only needed materials to recreate them, which he could obtain once they arrived at the New World.
Instead of going through all the trouble of keeping them hidden, he might as well act more decisively. He only needed to keep the glass box that contained the brains as well as the virtual reality setup! “Fine, if you think there’s a need for such precautions, getting rid of them might just be the right thing to do!” The scene of the big gray hand attacking the Expeditionary Army base flashed through Lu Kuan’s mind as he shivered and carried out the order without hesitation.
The next second, the wings on both sides of the rocket’s body began to detach themselves.
Thanks to the pull of the gravity below, they violently crashed into the ground below, creating bright sparks of light from the impact
The energy supply unit at the back of the rocket also automatically ejected the 41% energy walnut and sent it back into the captain’s quarters, before it initiated the second stage of detaching.
Boom!
Just like the wings, the two sections at the bottom of the rocket were separated and exploded when they crashed on the ground below.
The re-entry capsule’s energy supply stabilized and two smaller wings were quickly extended from the body of the capsule to reorient the capsule’s direction and bearings.
“Cabin positioning has been perfectly maintained. Energy supply is being perfectly distributed. Cabin length is 6.99 meters, outer cabin temperature is 49.1 degrees…”
“Navigation calculations completed. Designated wasteland coordinates 36210. 33591. 25. 96.”
“Current speed is 3.15km/s. After the cabin is pressurized in two minutes, the speed will increase to 22.1km/s.”
“Estimated journey duration is 5 hours and 9 minutes!”
All the data was reported accurately as Su Mo lightly nodded his head and Lu Kuan’s mechanical arm pushed the thrust lever.
Vroom!
It was as if they had been turned upside down. In an instant, the re-entry capsule’s bearings were adjusted to point straight down.
The next second, the entire cabin started sparkling brightly like fireworks in the night sky as the capsule followed the pull of gravity and ignited its engines. This light was bright, and while it wasn’t to the extent where one could call it dazzlingcompared to the celestial bodies in the sky, and the planet that Lu Kuan and his crew had failed to reach twice-it was extremely eye-catching!
After the two minutes required to pressurize the cabin were up, the re-entry capsule sped up and reached a speed of seventy thousand kilometers per hour, falling back through the wasteland’s atmosphere like a burning meteor.
Even with the insulation of the psychic energy material, the temperature of the outer layer of the capsule reached an unprecedented four thousand five hundred degrees, which was the temperature of the surface of the sun!
Rays of light converged as the friction between the outer layer and the air produced enormous amounts of heat energy.
As the wasteland’s clock struck twelve, this psychic energy shuttle rocket’s re-entry capsule descended like a meteor, grabbing the attention of those who could see it. At this time, Su Mo stood in front of the porthole window as his chest swelled with
pride.
No matter how difficult things were, I survived!
No matter what obstacles I faced, I overcame them!
Now…
My dear wasteland…
I am back!
